Crips
The Crips are an independent African American street gang started in Los Angeles, California in 1969. The Crips were founded by Stanley Tookie Williams and Raymond Lee Washington who decided to unite their local gang members from the west and east sides of South Central, Los Angeles in order to battle neighboring street gangs. The Crips began as a single alliance between two autonomous gangs but is now a loosely connected network of individual sets, often engaged in open warfare with one another. The original name for the alliance was "Cribs," which was chosen to reflect the young age of the majority of the gang members. The name "Cribs" generated into the name "Crips" when gang members began carrying around canes to display their "pimp" status. People in the neighborhood then began calling them cripples, or "Crips" for short. A Los Angeles Sentinel article in February 1972 referred to some members as "Crips" (for cripples). The name had no political, organizational, cryptic, or acronymic meaning, though some have suggested it stands for Common Revolution In Progress. Williams, in his memoir, further refuted claims that the group was a spin-off of the Black Panther Party or formed for a community agenda, the name "depicted a fighting alliance against street gangs—nothing more, nothing less." Washington, who attended Fremont High School, was the leader of the East Side Crips, and Williams, who attended Washington High School, led the West Side Crips. Crips wear blue bandannas to the left side of their back pocket in remembrance of one of its original members named Curtis Buddha Morrow used to wear a blue bandanna to the back side of his left pocket as a fashion statement and when he died the Crips kept up the tradition in honor of him, they also wear blue because the color blue represents royalty. Crips are publicly known to have an intense and bitter rivalry with the Bloods and lesser feuds with some Chicano gangs. Crips have been documented in the U.S. military, found in bases in the United States and abroad. History The Crips fromed in the Watts section of Los Angeles as the Baby Avunue Cribs. While attending Fremont High School 15 year old Washington wrounded up a couple of his closest friends and began fighting off rival white gangs in near by nighborhoods. With only 10 members and all under the age of 18 other gangs referd to them as "babies" but as the Cribs got poweful they dropped they adopted the the name Crip. Soon after 1971 the Crips were the largest and most toughest gang, as they began spilling into the westeren side of South Central.Stanley "Tookie" Williams A westside native from Batton Rough teamed up with Raymond's gang and the both became a powerhouse organization terrorizing the community. Youth residents that were geting terrorized by the Crips joined the Black p Stones. In the summer of 1972 two teenage youths from Compton started the Piru Street Boys and began fighting off the Crips in there nighbourhood. meanwile in South Central the Black p Stones were losing territory and called an emergency meetin at Manual Arts High School. Gangs such as the Athens Park Boys the Brims and the Piru Street Boys attended the metting agreed to join forces with eachother and made a voul to look out for one onther and have each others backs when Crips want fight. They stated callin themselfs the bloods and sported the colors red,green and black. In that same year thr Main Street Boys and the Avalon Gardens Boys joined up with the crips. Bloods became more organized in compton as crips became more powerful in south central, with over 12,00 members strong the crips, the Bloods were badly outnumberd with only had 500 members in compton and south central. in 1974 Raymond washington was arested for 2nd degree robbery and sentenced to five years at the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, California. Washington would become the first Crip incarcerated at Deuel. While incarcerated at Deuel, Washington began to recruit young African American inmates into the Crips, much to the disapproval of established black prison groups like the Black Muslims and the Black Guerrilla Family (also known as the BGF). According to a former inmate who was housed at Deuel with Washington the Black Muslims and the BGF, aware of the spread of the Crips in Los Angeles, warned Washington that they weren't going to tolerate a formation of the Crips in the prison. In prison raymond decided when he gets relesed he was leaving the crips and start a new life but was shot and killed on august 9 1979 by a crip gang member. Territory The Crips have beenbattling over territory since the 1970s agenst the bloods. 1980s the crips took full control over Long beach one of Los Angeles County's Largest city. crips gangs established the terrotry after bloods took control of inglewwod. long beach Crip gangs such as the Rollin 20s Crips, Insane Crips and the Rollin 80s West Coast Crips began fighting agenst the longos 13 gang. Compton crips began fighting agenst the Compton Varrio gang crateing a ractial gang war.